


The School of the Raven

by freudensteins_monster



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alive Renfri | Shrike (The Witcher), Aretuza (The Witcher), BAMF Renfri (The Witcher), Dialogue Heavy, Eskel's child surprise, Gen, Inspired by The Accidental Warlord and His Pack Series - inexplicifics, Inspired by The Witcher, Mages, Timeline What Timeline, Warlord Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, and i inserted a youtube video instead of writing a fight scene, female witchers, so much dialogue, witcher schools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: When Nilfgaard marches on Cintra the Warlord of the North wants to aid Cintra, but has no idea how to do so without earning the ire Calanthe (should she survived the battle).Eskel has an idea, and an entire school of allies they can call on.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	The School of the Raven

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [With a Conquering Air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273713) by [inexplicifics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics). 



> This started with me just musing about a secret all-girl school of witchers. A few months later and this poured out of me in a weekend, and is not exactly what I had in mind when I first thought of the idea. I started with the basic background of inexplicifics Accidental Warlord universe pre-Jaskier, threw in a few Black Sun princesses (woo!), made sure Stregobor was dead (yeah!), inserted a youtube video in place of a fight scene (sorry), and invented an old lady OC who I'm completely delighted with. ^_^ Hope you like it.
> 
> All details re the Order of Mori Rígain, as well as a few of my OC names came from the Witcher Wiki.  
> https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Morrigan  
> https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Sun

Nilfgaard’s forces were mobilizing. The Warlord’s contacts had confirmed it two weeks before an official report had filtered in from Cintra. They were moving north from their foothold in Mettina, through Nazair, and would meet Cintran steel on the other side of the Marnadal Stairs.

Queen Calanthe had the support of Skellige, and the Jarl had promised to send a whole fleet of troops across the Great Sea to fight alongside her, but the Warlord and his council still had their concerns.

“It’s that bitch Fringilla I don’t trust,” Yennifer seethed. “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s good. Not just good. She’s driven by this White Flame nonsense and the ends always justify the means; there’s no line she won’t cross,” she fumed as she paced at the front of the room. “If I was her… I’d make sure the Skellige fleet doesn’t make it.”

“How?” Geralt asked.

Yennifer shrugged. “A storm, maybe. Or perhaps summon a kraken from the depths to destroy their ships.”

“She can do that?”

“With enough mages to sacrifice to maintain the balance so it doesn’t kill her…”

“So, we send a troop of witchers to help hold the front lines, in case the worst happens,” Eskel suggests.

“Calanthe won’t accept our aid, she’s far too stubborn,” Vesemir grumbled.

“I wasn’t suggesting we ask her permission,” Eskel smirked.

Geralt snorted. “That might make things worse between us and Cintra, either way.”

“What I don’t get,” Lambert interjected, tapping the tip of his dagger against the map pinned to the table, “Is why they’re attacking Cintra head on. Nilfgaard are like that mage of theirs; they might drone on and on about honour and glory, but they’re not above sneaky, backstabbing tactics.”

Vesemir hummed in agreement. “Attacking them from two fronts would be smarter, but that would mean taking troops the long way around to the other side of the Amell mountain range.”

“And they’d be stupid to try and take a troop of men through forests of Mad Turga to the Theodula Pass,” Lambert added. “So that means going the even longer way through Toussaint.”

“And then they’d still have to cross Sodden to get to Cintra.” Geralt’s brow creased as he studied the map. “If they are planning on a two-prong attack, that second troop will probably already be halfway through Toussaint by now. They’d have to be if they’re to make it to Cintra by the time the main troops cross the border.”

“We don’t have any allies in Toussaint, and we don’t have any contacts far enough south to be able to portal anywhere close enough to be useful,” Vesemir muttered.

Geralt’s nose twitched as the scent of something akin to guilt began to roll off of Eskel. He was leaning over the map, avoiding the eyes of everyone in the room as his were focused on the Amell mountain range.

“Eskel…” Eskel blinked and glanced up at Geralt, unable to hide the flicker of emotions that crossed his scarred face. “What is it?”

“I may have a contact,” he admitted, tapping the map. “Might even be able to help stop Nilfgaard before they get to Sodden.”

“Where?” Yennifer asked, peering at the map. “Belhaven?”

“Not exactly. There’s a small temple across the river in the foothills of the mountain. The Order of Mori Rígain reside there.”

Yennifer looked at the map again, and then back up at Eskel. “You can’t be serious. The Morrigan?”

“Who are they when they’re at home?” Lambert asked.

Yennifer sighed, still side eying Eskel with disdain. “The Morrigan, or the Order of Mori Rígain, are part religious order, part halfway house for wayward little girls. They have a penchant for taking in girls with some chaos in them, girls who should have been sent to Aretuza for training, and turning them into two-penny fortune tellers and glorified midwives,” Yennifer sneered.

“And where did you learn that?” Eskel shot back, “From your teachers at the great Aretuza?”

“Enough,” Geralt called before the two of them got into it. “Eskel, do you think your contact would help us?”

“I can’t be sure, but it can’t hurt to ask.”

“Fine,” Yennifer sighed. “Draft a letter and I’ll send it to them by raven. It should reach them by nightfall.”

“No need,” Eskel smirked at the increasingly irritable sorceress. “I have my own lines of communication.”

A few days later Eskel asked the council to meet him in the war room for an update.

“I’ve heard back from my contact,” he advised. “Nilfgaard did send a second wave of troops through Toussaint, but they’ve found themselves completely unable to cross the Sansretour River and were forced to retreat through the Theodula Pass,” he remarked jovially. “With any luck, the monsters that reside there will keep them busy.”

“And how on earth did your contact manage that?” Yennifer demanded to know.

Eskel shrugged. “They have their ways.”

“And what ways are those?” she pressed. “How did a convent of half-trained girls take out a troop of Nilfgaardian soldiers? Am I the only one who wants answers?” she demanded of the room when Eskel remained tightlipped.

“You’re not,” Geralt assured her. “Eskel? Who is your contact? What means do they have to stop an army?”

Eskel sighed, the scent of guilt hanging heavy enough in the air for the other witchers to notice it as well. “I’m sorry, White Wolf. I can’t say. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. But you can ask them yourself; they’ve sought an audience with you.”

Geralt grunted. “When will should we expect them?”

“In a few days’ time. After they’ve taken care of Fringilla.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“What do you mean, ‘after they’ve taken care of Fringilla’?” Yennifer hissed.

Eskel shrugged again, infuriating everyone.

“I did not ask that of them, Eskel,” Geralt cursed. “You’ve sent them to their deaths.”

“I’ve done no such thing,” Eskel tried to reassure him. “All I asked was for reports of Nilfgaard’s troop movements in Toussaint, and warned them of the impending battle on the other side of the mountain range. They took the initiative to get involved.”

** *** **

_Meanwhile, on a mountain top near the Nazair/Cintra border…_

Fringilla stood and gazed out at the Great Sea, a handful of mages loyal to the White Flame at her back. In the moonlight she could just make out the sails of Skellige’s fleet on the horizon. She didn’t need to get any closer. She reached out for her chaos and… nothing. There was nothing. She took a deep breath and tried again, reaching deep inside herself but found a vast emptiness. She tried to reach out and steal the chaos of her fellow mages, but found that they too were empty vessels.

Fear, something she hadn’t felt since she left Aretuza, gripped her heart. She felt weak, and powerless, and worthless…

“That would be me, I’m afraid,” a kindly voice advised her.

Fringilla turned and found a young woman, a dark green cape covering her dark blonde hair, smiling at her. She glanced at her idiot compatriots, ready to curse them for letting a stranger get the drop on them, but found them all clawing at their slit throats, choking on their own blood.

“And that would be Renfri,” the woman advised almost apologetically, gesturing to a dark-haired woman wearing a leather breastplate and matching vambraces on her wrists who appeared out of the shadows behind the woman in green. She was more interested in wiping the blood from her blade, but then she looked up. Her eyes… they were somehow darker than her own, and there was no mercy to be found in them.

Fringilla desperately tried to conjure a portal, a defensive blast – anything! – but nothing worked.

“If you’re quite done,” the first woman sighed with disinterest as the second approached Fringilla with a sharp smile and sharper blade.

** *** **

Yennifer slapped the reports down on the table in disbelief. “Nilfgaard called for a retreat by dawn of the second day, but only after half their number had been all but wiped out,” she recounted. “The Skellige fleet arrived in time, unharmed, to aid Calanthe. And Nilfgaard was without its own backup – the bodies of several mages, including Fringilla’s, were found on the Nazair coast…”

“They did it,” Lambert whistled. “I’m impressed.”

“Aren’t we all,” Vesemir hummed. “But that still begs the question who the hell are these girls, Eskel?”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to answer all your questions when they get here. They can portal in whenever we’re ready,” he directed at Geralt, who nodded.

A reasonable number of witchers lined the courtyard, hands on the hilts of their swords, while the Warlord and his council stood before the large wooden gates.

At Geralt’s signal Eskel pulled a xenovox from his pocket – one Yennifer hadn’t crafted – and gave the person on the other end the all clear. There was a hum of a portal opening on the other side of the doors, the sound of several sets of feet hitting the dirt, and finally a loud knock.

One of the Bears pulled it open to reveal a small party of women. The first over the threshold pulled back the hood of her cloak to reveal a head of dark blond hair. Her hazel eyes slid over the assembled witchers, stopping when she spied Eskel.

“Father!” she greeted with a smile, running into his arms.

“You’ve got to stop calling me that,” he laughed as he hugged her tightly. “It unnerves people now that we look closer in age.”

“Never!” she swore with a grin as he set her feet back on the ground.

“Father,” Geralt hissed under his breath.

“Ciri,” was all Eskel had to say in reply to have the Warlord of the North biting his tongue. “White Wolf, may I introduce Deirdre Ademeyn, my child surprise.”

“Warlord,” Deirdre greeted with a respectful nod.

“Well met. Who have you brought with you?”

Deirdre smiled and turned to introduce the women behind her.

“These are my sisters. Silvena of Narok, Bernika of Talgar, Renfri of Creyden,” she said gesturing to each of the women in turn, who all looked to be about Deidre’s age. The three of them shared the same dark eyes, but that was where any familial resemblance ended. Silvena was of elven descent with dark skin and darker hair worn in tight braids, Bernika had light brown hair tied back with a thin leather cord and had an overabundance of freckles across her fair skin, while Renfri had a warm complexion and mess of dark brown hair cut short. The three of them wore light leather armor and were armed with short swords and daggers, while Deidre herself was dressed in a modest forest green gown. 

“I know those names…” Geralt heard Yennifer mutter to herself.

“Our rectress, Iola of Gwynberg,” she continued, introducing a woman of 40-odd years with long copper hair flecked with grey and stormy blue eyes. She wore dark grey robes embroidered with black feathers, looking much more like the priestess most of them had been expecting.

The last woman was much older, with white hair and cloudy grey eyes, who wore a simple black dress with a shawl around her shoulders that had a dark iridescent sheen like raven feathers. And while her back had not been bent by time she walked with the aid of cane of dark polished wood, the handle of which was a large raven skull cast in silver. In fact, all of the women had a silver raven skull about their person, either on a chain around their necks or as a brooch pinned over their hearts.

“And this is our venerated Mother Superior…”

“Melitele’s… sagging…tits…” Vesemir swore as the old woman moved to stand beside Deidre. He dropped his sword in shock, something completely unheard of, which had every other witcher drawing theirs.

In the blink of an eye Deidre’s sisters closed ranks around the other three women, drawing their own swords and glaring at horde of witchers surrounding them, all but daring them to make the first move.

“Stand down!” Geralt ordered. “Vesemir, who is she?”

“Vela…” he murmured, never taking his eyes off the woman, earning a shocked cry from the oldest witchers among then, each of them three centuries old at least.

At hearing her name, the old woman perked up, tapping the shoulder of the woman called Renfri to indicate it was safe to lower her weapon and step aside. “I was wondering if there were any witchers yet living who might remember me. What is your name, sir?”

“Vesemir of the Wolf School,” he choked out.

The old woman cackled with glee, making her seem madder, perhaps, than she was. “Vesemir the oh-so-grim,” she teased. “I remember you. Such a serious little boy.”

“It’s Vesemir the Grey these days, my lady,” Vesemir chuckled wetly.

“Ah, yes,” she sighed, patting her own hair self-consciously. “Time comes for us all.”

“Hardly,” he jested. “You don’t look a day over two hundred.”

Vela cackled again, turning to her party. “Did you hear that, Iola? Two hundred, he says. We could be sisters.”

“Yes, mother,” Iola replied with an indulgent smile.

Geralt stepped forward to try and get a handle on the increasingly strange situation. “Perhaps we should move this reunion inside? All of you not on guard duty return to your training,” he called out to the gathered witchers. It took a long moment for them to move, all of them endlessly curious about the old woman who had their mentors rattled.

“And who might you be, young man,” Vela asked, taking a few measured steps in Geralt’s direction. “Is he one of your boys, Vesemir?”

“That he is,” the old wolf replied proudly. “My lady, may I introduce to you Geralt of Rivia. The Warlord of the North, the White Wolf, ruler of Kovir, Caingorn, Kaedwen, and so on and so forth…”

“Oh, you grew up good,” she grinned delightedly, reaching out to pinch said warlord’s cheek with wizened fingers.

“Uh, thank you,” Geralt most certainly did not blush. He also ignored the smirks of the rest of his council was giving him as Vela linked her arm in his, forcing him to escort her to the main hall.

He led Vela to a seat to the left of his modest throne. Iola and Deidre joined her on that side of the table but the other three girls ignored the offer to sit and took up positions at their sister’s backs, as Vesemir, Eskel, and Yennifer took seats to Geralt’s right. Lambert and a dozen other witchers stood guard around the room while some of the oldest of their schools silently took seats at the far end of the Wolf table to observe the proceedings. The dark eyes of the three female warriors watched them all warily, their hands never straying far from their daggers.

Geralt opened his mouth his mouth to speak but hesitated. “I have so many questions I’m not sure where to start,” he admitted.

“Perhaps, before we go back to the beginning,” Vesemir suggested as he gestured between himself and Vela, “And then we can come back to how we came to be here together this day.”

All eyes on the witcher side of the table glanced at Eskel, who ducked his head as if scolded by his mentor while his child surprised beamed at him.

“This,” Vesemir announced to his side of the table, “is the sorceress, Vela.”

“You trained at Aretuza?” Yennifer enquired.

“Not exactly, dear,” the old woman smiled.

“Vela did not train at Aretuza,” Vesemir answered in her stead, "for she was already a competent mage at the time of its founding.

“But that would make her…”

“Very, very old,” Vela teased.

“Wait…” Yennefer blink. “Vela… Vela the First?”

“You don’t mean…” Geralt started.

“No. I may be old, but I’m not _that_ old,” Vela laughed. “And I very much doubt that if any records concerning me remain at Aretuza, my dear, they do not regard me so kindly.”

“No,” Yennefer admitted. “They also called you Vela the Weak.” Yennefer turned to her side of the table. “She was called Vela the First because she was the first to turn her back on the Brotherhood, to break ties with Aretuza and go rogue. You were something of an inspiration to me and the other mages that decided to help Geralt,” she admitted.

“That’s so nice of you to say,” Vela smiled. “And I’m glad it seems to have taken you a less time than it did me to do the right thing.”

“You helped,” Vesemir argued.

“Not nearly enough,” Vela lamented with a shake of her head. “With Aretuza’s founding more and more mages were arguing for strict rules on the use of chaos. I found it distasteful to try and tame something so wild and free. Even more so when it became clear that those at the top, clamouring for order, were power-hungry hypocrites,” she sneered. “I had no interest using my gifts to aid the powerful – either by serving in their courts or training their daughters. I got mixed up with some mages who had the noble intent of wanting to help the people of the Continent, to protect them from the monsters that had been unleashed upon the lands after the Conjunction. Such a noble idea,” she trailed off, losing herself in the memories of screaming children.

“Due to a lack of deference to Aretuza, her closeness with the elves who trained her, but mostly due to her gender I fear, the mages who ran the Trials treated Vela like an assistant, a lowly healer instead of an equal,” Vesemir continued for her. “She spent most of her time using portals to travel from one school to the next, caring for the boys who survived the Trials while the mages were busy with more important matters.”

“I tried to make the Trials less brutal, did my own experiments and found ways to identify boys who had the greatest chance of surviving the them."

“But they didn’t want to hear it,” Geralt growled. Their own mages had been the same when Triss had found a better way. Their old mages didn’t live long after they refused to change.

“No…” Vera sighed. “They didn’t care. They saw themselves as so far above humans they truly stopped caring about mortal life. Made it sound like those poor boys were sacrificing themselves for some noble goal, when in truth the mages saw them as nothing more than lab mice,” she wept. “After fifty years of listening to those poor boys’ screams… after years of talking myself hoarse but no one listening to me… I wasn’t strong enough to fight them and win, I could not change their minds… So I did indeed become Vela the Weak, Vela the Cowardly; I walked away.”

“I must admit,” Vesemir added softly, “that we hated you at first. You were a kind touch when everything else around us was so hard and cruel, and then you disappeared and took that kindness with you.”

“I am truly sorry,” Vela sniffled as Iola comforted her.

Vesemir shook his head. “It was only at first. But then the older boys would tell us of the fights you would get into with the mages, the punishments you took when they caught you trying to sabotage their needlessly cruel experiments… We only remembered you fondly after that.”

The old witchers at the end of the table nodded in agreement.

“Aye, you became something of a bedtime story for a generation of us,” one of them added. “You were Vela the Kind, an angel of mercy who looked after the souls of the boys who didn’t survive the Trails.”

“And what is your name?”

“Guxart, my lady. Of the Cat School. And with me are Barmin of the Wolf School, and Old Keldar of the Griffins.”

“Oh! You all survived!”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

“Nonsense,” she laughed wetly. “Thanks to your own strength, of that I have no doubt. _Old_ Keldar,” she snorted, “I remember when you were called ‘Little Keldar’, always getting under your trainer’s feet.”

Old Keldar would have blushed if he could, and glared at the Griffins posted around the room who were trying not to laugh.

“What happened to you after you left, my lady?” Vesemir asked, getting them back on track.

“I travelled,” she replied. “I refused every summons from Aretuza, but as they didn’t consider me a threat to their power so they soon wrote me off as a lost cause. I found myself near Toussaint, and through the elves who taught me to understand chaos I was introduced to the Order of Mori Rígain, our Lady of Ravens, patron of magic, war, and that which comes after. I decided to stay on at the temple and do my penance. I worked as a healer, and a teacher. And then talk of the Great Cleansing reached me,” she sighed. “I returned to Aretuza then, to try and talk some sense into the other mages but none cared to hear it. So, I returned to the temple and did what I could to protect my friends. And I have spent the rest of the years since much the same, teaching and sheltering those who need it.”

Vesemir turned to Eskel, “I suppose that’s where you and Deidre come in.”

Eskel nodded and took a moment to get his thoughts in order. “Some time ago when I was out on the Path, making my way through northern Redania. Long story slightly shorter, I saved the life of a prince from Caingorn. He offered the Law of Surprise as payment. I escorted him back to Hengfors, if only to collect my payment, but the first thing he found upon returning home after several months on the road was his pregnant wife.

“Needless to say, his wife was furious when he explained the Law of Surprise, and I wasn’t thrilled about it either. I told them they could pay me in coin and I would leave them, and their unborn child, alone. And I had every intention of keeping my word, but…”

“Destiny,” Geralt hummed.

“I felt it the moment she was born, knew it the moment the moon passed in front of the sun…”

“The Curse of the Black Sun,” Yennefer remembered, staring at the younger women in the room in shock. “That’s how I know your names; you were all princesses born under the Black Sun.”

The girls all stiffened at the mention of it.

“We’ll circle back around to that in a minute, my dear,” Vela promised Yennefer, gesturing at Eskel to continue.

“I visited Hengfors every few seasons, often getting run out of town by the city guards, but one year, when Deidre was no more than eight years old, they invited me in… and they asked me to kill her.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the witcher’s side of the table.

“Her uncle, hungry for the throne she would one day inherit, poisoned the minds of those closest to her, made them all believe the curse was real. Said she was a strange child, with unnatural abilities… a monster.” Eskel shared a sad smile with Deidre. “I quickly realised they would not be swayed to reason, so I said I would take her with me, and promised to kill her if she proved herself to be a monster.

“And so we left that cruel place and travelled south. We travelled the Path together for the better part of three years - I avoided returning to Kaer Mohren for the better part of three years, but the only strangeness I noticed about her was the way magic - spells and signs - refused to exist in the same space as her. But all that meant was that I started carrying a flint with me, and kept her somewhere safe, with as much distance between us as possible, when I went on a hunt.

“The winter before Geralt called us home to discuss Ard Carraigh I got these,” he said, gesturing at this facial scars. “We were somewhere north of Loch Monduirn when we ran into a nest of bruxa. Caught me by surprise,” he admits with a small measure of embarrassment, “Deidre was too close for me to be able to use my signs, but I held my own against them with just my swords, for a time. I got one of the last two by driving my silver sword through its chest, but that left me close enough for it to take a swipe at my face. There was blood everywhere, I couldn’t see shit, and it felt like my jaw was hanging on by a thread. I swung wildly at the last bruxa. It scrambled backwards and went to scream. We should have been done for, but Deidre…” he paused, glancing at his child surprise in awe, “she got between us and when the beast screamed it was like the sound hit a mirror and was reflected back tenfold. The bruxa was thrown twenty feet away into a tree and didn’t get back up.

“We were safe, but I was still injured, losing far too much blood, and we were a day’s ride from the next town – without a horse. I downed the last bottle of Kiss I had and Deidre all but dragged me into woods to setup camp and patch me up as best she could. By morning infection had set in. We tried to make the journey to Riedburne on foot but we didn’t get far. Spent three days in the woods, feverish and delirious, wondering what would happen to Deidre if the next time I fell asleep I failed to wake. But then, on the morning of the fourth day, I woke up in a warm bed, Deirdre asleep in the bed next to me. My fever had broken, my wounds had been cleaned and wrapped, and I felt no pain.

“One of the girls at the temple had visions heralding our arrival and Iola, along with some of her students, found us in the woods and brought us back to the temple. A few days later, when I was able to sit up and go a few hours without a potion for the pain, I was brought to see Vela who told me about their order, and about the other girls she cared for.”

“Girls who had been born under the Black Sun,” Yennefer surmised.

“Some,” Vela nodded. “Saved maybe two dozen from foolish mages who either wanted to cut them up and study them or lock them away from the world,” she spat. “But that’s only been in the last tweny-odd years. For the first two hundred or so I saved girls like my Iola. Girls who showed some aptitude for chaos but had kind hearts that I knew would not survive Aretuza.”

Iola spoke then, addressing Yennefer, with a sorrowful expression, “I’m sorry we did not get to you before Tissaia did. We would have been honoured to count you among our sisters.” Yennefer fell back in her chair in shock, her purple eyes glistening with tears. “But perhaps,” she mused, glancing around the room, “Your destiny lay elsewhere.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed weakly, blinking away her tears.

Eskel cleared his throat awkwardly, bringing attention away from the suddenly vulnerable mage, and continued his tale. “While I was recovering Diedre had been spending time with the girls there, girls like her – so called cursed princesses, girls training to be sorceresses, and well as two-penny fortune tellers and glorified midwives,” he jested, earning a tired smile from Yennefer. “We talked about it that night, what she wanted for her future, and about all the training, friendships, and safety she would not find walking the Path with me,” Eskel smiled sadly at his child surprise, “She asked to stay. And so I left her in Vela’s care and returned to the Path, returned to Kaer Mohren, and joined the White Wolf’s army,” he teased Geralt. “In the years that followed I tried to visit the temple for a few weeks every season, but when the White Wolf’s territories grew, and so to my duties as his right hand, I rarely had the time or the opportunity to travel that far south. But by then, Deidre had grown into a remarkable young mage, able to control her nullifying powers, so she would use a portal to arrive somewhere just outside Posada, and I would ask one of our mages to do the same for me.”

“That’s why you would ask us to send you to Posada?” Yennefer pried. “You were always so evasive, and seemed so stressed, I honestly thought you just needed a night off and went there to visit your favourite brothel.”

“Ew,” Deidre cringed. “Please tell me that’s not why you chose Posada.”

“No! Of course not!” Eskel spluttered. “I chose it because it was one of the Wolf’s most southern territories, but with no active Witcher army presence so I wouldn’t have to explain why I was there sharing a meal with an unfamiliar mage,” he argued indignantly.

“Uhuh,” Yennefer smirked, while Lambert could be heard chuckling in the background.

“So when Eskel reached out to you a few weeks ago…” Vesemir cut in with a sigh.

Iola nodded. “He explained the situation to us. What Nilfgaard and its mages were planning. Asked if we would keep a watchful eye on the roads between Toussaint and Sodden and report back about their troop movements. I brought the matter to the girls and they wanted to help.”

“And how exactly did they take out a whole troop of Niflgaardian soldiers and one of the most dangerous mages on the Continent?” Yennefer asked.

“They’re witchers,” Geralt remarked, earning a surprised look from almost everyone in the room. “It’s the eyes,” he explained. “They’re exactly the same, and far too dark to be natural.”

“I told you we should have worn glamours,” Bernika groused.

“Their mages would have known,” Silvana shot back with a sigh, tired of the old argument.

“Yes,” Vela interjected. “I made some of them witchers. I spent a good long while perfecting the Trials, and found a way to test them so I knew they would survive it before subjecting them to the mutation. My Black Sun girls were the most receptive. I did not force any of them,” she added sharply in response to the concerned stares she somehow knew she must be getting, “and only offered it to those who asked, those who knew what it was to be weak and defenceless, girls I knew would not abuse the power given to them.”

“Not you?” Eskel asked Deidre, surprised by this information as much as any of the others.

“No,” she replied with a soft smile. “I knew you would not want that for me, and I have never craved physical strength the way some of my sisters have.”

“How many are there? How many witchers have you made?” Vesemir asked.

“Thirty-four all told. Most of them are still with us.”

“Why have we not heard of them, this School of the Raven, before now?” Geralt wanted to know.

“We ask them to keep a low profile,” Vela admitted. “They do not take contracts, and we do not ask them to go out and try to save the Continent for we know it will not thank them for it.”

“For the most part they stay close to the temple,” Iola added. “They keep the monsters from wandering too far away from the mountains or outside the boundaries of the Mad Turga forests.”

“And when they’re not safeguarding the foothills of the Amell mountains?”

“My Black Sun girls hunt the hunters, the mages who still wish them harm,” Vela confessed.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a mage by the name of Stregobor, would you?” Yennefer wondered aloud. “He was found dead about ten years back, stuck with a whole mess of daggers. Looked like a pin cushion, by all reports.”

The three dark eyed women averted their gazes but their silence and proud smiles spoke volumes.

“You’ll have to forgive them their dramatics,” Vela said with a put-upon sigh. “Some trainees are just a little more bloodthirsty than others,” she added with a look that was no less proud.

“You love me,” Renfri teased.

“That I do, girl,” Vela chuckled. “My Lady help me, but I do.”

“What training have they had?” Geralt enquired.

“Before the Black Sun girls, it was maybe one girl every ten years that decided to undergo the Trials, and I had help then from a witcher of the Bear School by the name of Haigrom when it came to training them. He came to us purely by chance, much the same way Eskel did, and when he realised what we were doing agreed to train the two girls who had since undergone the Trials. He stayed a week here and there while he was on the Path, and then every other winter, until one year he didn’t come back. After that the older girls taught the new ones.”

“And why reveal yourselves to us now?”

“The girls have been getting restless,” Vela replied. “They’ve been hearing stories of the Warlord of the North and his witcher army, and all the good you’ve been doing. You seem to be a man of honour, a man who keeps his word; a rare thing in this world,” she mused. “And while the School of the Raven doesn’t bow so well,” she added with a smirk, “if you have need of allies in the south, you have them.”

Geralt contemplated her words for a moment. “We would welcome the School of the Raven as allies. But I would like to see your girls spar with some of my witchers before you return to your temple.”

“I want to fight the White Wolf!” Renfri all but shouted before Geralt could finish. Her sisters sighed loudly. “What? When am I going to get another chance like this?”

Geralt smirked. “Very well, Renfri of Creyden. I will meet you on the training grounds.”

** *** **

When it was the White Wolf and the little Raven's turn to spar almost the entire keep had crowded around the training grounds to watch, and Renfri at least was revelling in the attention.

Geralt stepped into the makeshift arena and drew his steel sword. “To first blood.”

Renfri smiled.

** *** **

<Sorry, but after struggling with all these last few pages all weekend I flat out refuse to write a fight scene. Please insert Renfri vs Geralt fight sequence from S01E01 [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ots65TnAs), but imagine they don’t draw blood until Geralt gets his sword against her throat (1:48)>

** *** **

The fight was over in a matter of minutes, with Geralt the unsurprising victor. It was hardly a fair fight, but Renfri had impressed them all by holding her own against the White Wolf. Her reflexes were almost as fast as Geralt’s own, and knowing she couldn’t match his strength she drew on a well of controlled rage to fuel her strikes.

“You’re good,” Geralt remarked as he pulled his sword away from her throat. “You could be great.” He turned to Vela who was watching smugly from the sidelines. “If all your girls are as good as the ones you brought with you, you have done well with their training. It could be improved upon though, so I would suggest something of an exchange program. Some of your girls spend a season here and some of our trainers spend a season at your temple. And I’m sure Yennefer would like to meet your mages, and Triss would love to work with your healers and discuss how she can improve her own work with the Trials.”

“That would be most agreeable,” Vela smiled, gathering her girls to her. “We’ll let you gossip about us amongst yourselves for the time being – I won’t throw my girls in the deep end and subject them to a northern winter on top of everything else, but come spring we should meet again to discuss the details. Eskel dear, you know how to reach us,” she said by way of a farewell, pinching the witcher’s scarred cheek as she walked past.

Eskel rubbed his cheek, smiling ruefully at his daughter. Deidre hugged him goodbye before following her sisters out the gates of Kaer Mohren. Iola conjured a portal, and in the flash of a light they were gone from sight.

“Ow!” Eskel cursed, rubbing the back of his head as he glared at Geralt. “What the hell was that for?”

“Keeping secrets,” Vesemir supplied with a grunt, before retreating to the main hall to join Guxart, Barmin, and Old Keldar in a well-deserved drink.

** *** **

Thank you for reading. Have some avatars I did up of Deidre, Iola, and Vela using a the[ Austen Heroine picrew:](https://picrew.me/image_maker/587099)


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